I Run a Wine Store and This Is the Budget-Friendly Bubbly I’m Stocking Up on Right Now
published about 1 hour ago
There’s a point during the holiday season when I finally lean into the decadence of it all: pie for breakfast, all-day brunch, and cocktails whenever. This makes it a great time of year for mimosas, so get your holiday-themed pajamas on and let’s make ourselves a drink! But first, we’ll need the right sparkly base.
While the original mimosa recipe called for real Champagne (it was created back when Champagne wasn’t so eye-wateringly expensive, either in the 1920s or ’40s, depending on which story you believe), these days I recommend using a more affordable sparkling wine. I grabbed a bunch of inexpensive Prosecco, Cava, and domestic sparkling wine from my local grocery store to run through an official taste test. I figured, if you’re hosting a last-minute holiday brunch, that’s likely where you’ll be shopping. While I was pleasantly surprised by a few, the winner was a $13 bottle of Prosecco.
Ca’ Furlan’s Cuvée Beatrice
There are three main criteria for sparkling wine when being used for mimosas: It should be affordable, marry well with fruit flavors, and taste good on its own (sometimes you just want to nix the juice, even if it is before noon). Ca’ Furlan’s Cuvée Beatrice checks all the boxes. It’s refreshing, but has plenty of the ripe, clear, juicy pear flavor that glera, the grape used to make Prosecco, is known for. The fizz is foamy and delicate, but persistent enough that it won’t go flat when mixed with fruit juice.
Buy : Ca’ Furlan’s Cuvée Beatrice Prosecco , $12.99 for 750ml on Drizly
The way Prosecco is made lends itself to fruity cocktails. Wines made in the Champagne method do their secondary fermentation that traps the bubbles in the bottle inside each individual bottle. Then the newly fizzy wine ages on those dead yeast cells (this is called sur lie — it sounds less gross in French) for well over a year, giving Champagne and wines made in the Champagne method their signature toasty, yeasty aromas and flavors. These flavors are great when you’re sipping bubbly by itself, but mixed with fruit juice, those nuances can get lost or, worse, clash a little.
Prosecco, however, is made in northeast Italy using a different method. First, a base wine that’s like regular table wine is made, just like in the Champagne method. But after that, the secondary fermentation is done in a large tank instead of each individual bottle, and the wine doesn’t spend time sitting on those dead yeast cells the way Champagne-method sparklers do. The result is a bubbly that’s all about bright, fresh, clear fruit flavors.
So even though traditionally mimosa recipes call for Champagne and Bellini recipes call for Prosecco, I think any fruit-based sparkling cocktail is better with a Charmat-Method sparkler like Prosecco — even if price is no object. I’m not a mixology expert, but I have tasted a lot of cheap sparkling wine (hey, I run a wine store and I really like brunch!), and these are the conclusions I’ve come to after a lot of research.
Do you have a favorite Prosecco? Tell us about it in the comments below!
Diane McMartin
Contributor
Diane is a wine consultant, educator, and author of This Calls For A Drink. She is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America's Wine and Beverage Certificate Program and a Certified Sommelier through the Court of Master Sommeliers.
Source : food
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